Babylon 5 Mod

[grumbler]

Nomor,

Good to hear from you again. Great link, especially as I thought I had discovered most of the good ones long ago (and even more especially as this site links to even more that I hadn't yet found).

Agree that there is a mass of spagetti here to unravel, and that this may have driven Val to distraction. However, I think that we can think the project through logically to a conclusion.

Care is needed, but also boldness, and an understanding of the basic system we are trying to mod. I have learned a lot following Pathfinder's explorations into the AI, and I think that my conclusion is that the AI requirements simplify the problem rather than complicating it. Maybe that is what Val failed to see.

I will have more on this soon, once I finish my (recently resurrected due to inspiration by Timstone) look at how the AI really does design ships.

My bottom line is that the "Val" weapons system seems FAR more complicated than is needed by the system, and that we need to draw the distinction between weapons systems needed for a functioning, unique, and capable AI opponent for each race and the "chrome" systems that are of utility only to human players of that race.

More to follow.

[ March 08, 2004, 04:51: Message edited by: grumbler ]

[Fyron]

One thing that really needs to be done is to change the descriptions of all facilities, components, etc. that have really vague ability descriptions. There is never a good reason not to display the relevant number in-game.

[Timstone]

Well good to see discusion going again.
I've begun changing the general weapons according to my homemade Weapon Construction File.

I wholly support Grumblers asumption of taking small steps at a time and have a logical aproach to this wonderful mod.

As far as the facilities concerning, I've given all the facilities a clear description and together with Grumbler (some time ago) we come up with a good way for a starting planet. Even the AI picks it up. Hurray!

Grumbler: PM!

[grumbler]

I think it would probably be pretty easy to get a valid facilities system going, so long as we acknowledge that the needs (and abilities) of the AI have to be priority #1, so that we avoid a facilities setup where "being human" is a hige advantage.

Similarly, we need to design the weapons system from the "top down" IMO, and the starting place for that is a general description of what we would expect a ship of any given type (massive ship, capital ship, carrier, cruiser, destroyer, escort) to have in the way of weapons suites.

That is to say, for example, would we expect a capital ship to be armed with two or three instances of the race's most powerful weapons, or six to eight? Should the capital ship have intermediate weapons, or should it just be primary weapons plus PD weapons? Should it have fighters? How much of the "weapon space" should be devoted to fighters?

Once all of these questions are answered, we can then build an AI model of the capital ship, and determine what the size charactorists of the weapons that will go in it should be. We can duplicate for each ship type down the line. Only THEN do we need to actually start to assemble the weapons characteristics.

The reason why this is a superior model to the "ground up" approach is because it then makes the AI opponent design ships that are fundamentally as good as what the human player builds, instead of having these quirks where the AI has 10kt less space than needed to put in the optimal weapons, and rather than shorting something else (as a human would do) it builds using the second-best weapons.

Plus, building weapons is a lot easier if you know the parameters for size and whatnot ahead of time, and merely adjust power to reflect size.

Anyway, that is my theory. Discussion?

[Timstone]

I thought that Val had already solved the weapons thingy. I thought he already decided how a certain ship would be composed, so I naturaly took on the job to adjust the weapons. Nothing more nothing less. Along the way I discovered I wanted to give the whole system a overhaul. When I tried adjusting the weapons I saw that the whole components.txt was a mess, a true jungle, a nightmare. I decided I would make the next Version of The Mod modular. I wanted to include only a few races at first and later on more races.
So I already I had a pretty good idea how I wanted to see The Mod when it was done.
Because I'm lazy I took on the B5 Wars books as a firm basis for it all. Like I said before, why invent the wheel again? I hoped that most of the problems were already solved by Val (like the ship thingy Grumbler mentioned).
I never asked for assistance because I wanted to do everything myself, soon I realised I couldn't do that. I still didn't ask for help. First I wanted to show the people that read this thread what I had in mind and then I wanted to ask for help.
Slowly my enthusiasm ebbed away. Along came Grumbler. Infusing me with new figor for The Mod.
I know we are the two main characters behind 2.0 (for now), but I still have my vision. I'll explain it.

First release:
Main files in place. Huge amount of quadrants, huge amount of formations, well every add-on file for SE IV would be included. I want the B5 Mod 2.0 not entirely B5 orientated, make it accesable for a large public. Included are only a few races.
Second release:
Adding more races and minor game adjustments.
Third release:
Even more races.

Every race has acces to the General Weapons and can research his racial tech stuff. Ancients cannot colonize and cannot send troops (no troopships). Nomads are uncertain if they can be implemented.

I wanted to follow the original B5 Mod as much as possible. Why? It is goooood.

I really like your thoughts on the facilities, but as far as the weapons concerned. I think we can adjust the ships too. Don't adjust the weapons, but adjust the ships. If you have this relation, you can proceed to making the rest of the facilities and so on. But to save us A LOT of work, I think it is best to leave the main system alone for now and do our primary modifications first. Then we playtest and decided what must be done.
But on the other hand, your aproach makes MUCH MORE sense. I'm a engineer and my guts tell me your way is the way to go.

So lets do it your (Grumbler) way and my way. I finish the general weapons (every racial weapons following this batch will obey the same set of rules) and the facilities. Then we can asses what to change to the ships and the like. Agree? Comments? Demands?

[Timstone]

Grumbler: I just read your Mail to me. I'll get back to you.

[grumbler]

I think that there may be some misunderstanding of what I am talking about when I say I want to use a common "model" for a ship type. What i mean is that i think we should agree with, for instance, a capital ship should devote (say) 40% of its hull size to weapons, 40% to speed, and 20% to electronics, or whatever. Each race would have different weapons and systems, and so different ships, but the overall outline would remain similar, just as (say) all WWII battleships had between 8 and 10 main guns. No "race" had 20 medium guns on a battleship.

The reason I am so anxious to start with a workable model for the AI_D_C is because it is the hardest thing to make work, and require playtesting to ensue that it works properly. You can automate the process of weapons design somewhat, and a given weapon isn't much changed by being 10% lighter and 10% less powerful, but a 10% change in AI_D_C is huge. If you have seperate "customized" ship designs for each race, you are creating a design monster - the very monster that Val himself dispaired of slaying (remember how the AI designs were always causing RCEs until Path went back and scrubbed them to get them into working order?)

The Mod "as is" is good, but the AI still does not build ships that can compete with a human for design utility. Some of the ships it produces are hardly mobile, while others contain a strange assortment of weapons. Given the complexity of the problem, and the need to make sure the designs WORK before making sure they WORK WELL, I find the suboptimal AI_D_C files quite understandable.

But if you are going to build the ships around the weapons and not the weapons around the ships, you need a lot of people who know how to make AI_D_C work right, and a lot of playtesting time, because that's the only way to do it.

I know, because I have been trying for a year, and I am not there yet.

[Timstone]

Okay, now I understand.
If you've been trying for a year and you reached this conclusion, I won't interfere with it. Alright, let's build the weapons around the ships.
Tell me what I must do and I'll do it. The AI is the first thing we need to fix.
I understood it wrong because I thought the diversity was going to be eliminated and I don't want that. I want lots and lots of options and stuff to goof around with. But now you've told me this I see we must make the AI work first. Changing the weapons and such is a piece of cake compared to the AI (I remember the RCE's).

[Minotaur]

Hello to all B5 modders, I’ve been playing the Last update of the B5 mod and find it excellent. I’ve been trying to do my own modifications to the mod (with limited success) and I’m willing to offer any help I can to get Version 2.0 off and running. I’ve only just gotten started trying to change the mod so I’m not sure how much help I can be…but if you need someone to crunch some numbers or just get you guys some coffee…I’m your man.

I agree with both Timestone and Grumble…we need to get the AI running smoothly and then build off that. Once we have a solid base for how the AI will design and use its ships, then we can add as much complexity we want afterwards. There’s nothing worse than playing the mod for 50 turns and moving into an unexplored system only to find it full of escorts and colony ships that are obsolete as hell and can only move one space per turn.

[Minotaur]

sorry...meant to say timstone and grumbler...stupid illiteracy.